The woman in the hospital gown did not belong to the soot.
She lay on the cracked concrete of the Sterling factory, her human skin jarring, and fragile. She smelled of antiseptic, lavender, and the cold, medicinal air of a place where people go to fade. Her breathing was a thin whistle.
Jacton stood over her, his frame casting a long, shadow that seemed to vibrate with the ghost of the fiber-optic grid. He reached for her Wrist. “She’s cold, and she’s losing her ‘Density’.”
Abigail knelt beside him, her platinum hair falling like a silver curtain over the woman’s face. She didn’t use the Silver Stylus to heal; she used it to Analyze. She pressed the glowing tip against the woman’s temple, and her silver eyes immediately flared with a raw, unexplainable terror.
“Jacton, she’s not just a
